Rockefeller bucks coal state allies

Sen. Jay Rockefeller was an exception to the roster of coal country lawmakers who lined up Wednesday morning behind a GOP push to derail an Obama administration rule targeting mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.

The five-term West Virginia Democrat broke sharply from his congressional delegation to oppose an attempt by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) to block a controversial EPA mercury rule — a political risk in a state that has grown increasingly isolated from President Barack Obama and his environmental policies.

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The resolution failed on a procedural vote 46-53.

Standing at the back of the Senate chamber with a handful of his colleagues looking on, the 75-year-old Democrat delivered a lofty speech before the vote, warning that attempts to demonize air pollution rules will only hurt the coal industry as it tries to stay competitive in an increasingly challenging economic environment. Calling the Inhofe effort “foolish,” Rockefeller said the long-term health effects of the rule would be “enormous.”

“This is a critical and contentious time in the Mountain State,” Rockefeller said. “The dialogue on coal, its impacts and the federal government’s role has reached a fevered pitch. ... West Virginians understandably worry that a way of life and the dignity of a job is at stake. Change and uncertainty in the coal industry is unsettling.

“But my fear is that concerns are also being fueled by the narrow view of others with divergent motivations — one that denies the inevitability of change in the energy industry, and unfairly leaves coal miners in the dust,” Rockefeller said. “The reality is that many who run the coal industry today would rather attack false enemies and deny real problems than find solutions.”

Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), a staunch ally of the environmental community, immediately hailed the speech.

“I believe when the next historian writes a book about leadership, courage and integrity in the United States Senate, that this speech today will be featured in that book,” she said.

Rockefeller, who faces voters again in 2014, is a throwback to an earlier era in West Virginia. The state has grown increasingly conservative and has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton in 1996, even as the state’s Democratic Party controls all levers of government there.

“I just think it is a duty for senior office holders to go,” Rockefeller said Tuesday.

He said he doesn’t think the lack of fellow West Virginians there is necessarily a statement about the EPA. “No, it’s just an unwillingness to take a position on the presidential race,” he said. “Tortured souls seeking a way out to the light.”

In the Democratic primary this year in West Virginia, Obama faced an unexpectedly stiff challenge from a convicted felon still serving time in Texas.